2 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2018
    1. However, courts might go further and address the concern that, even where government regulation of cognitive enhancement drugs is rooted in legitimate safety concerns, this should not—by itself—give the government authority to restrict individuals’ mental freedom or “cognitive liberty” far more than is necessary to address those safety concerns. Perhaps, for example, government has imposed a complete ban where something less restrictive will satisfy the safety concerns it is worried about. For example, the state might instead institute a “gatekeeper” system in which a doctor must assess and discuss risks for a particular individual before drugs are prescribed or require a mandatory course on side effects before use of cognitive enhancement drugs.

      I believe that this solution to the paragraph directly above it, directly contradicts itself. If the Government bans the use of a drug not because it can make someone happier/better, but because it can have potentially negative or harmful side affects, then this solution is impossible. If the government deems some as potentially harmful then in more cases than not it most probably is. In this way no government could rationally come to this solution rather than the one above it. It would be obscure for a Government to allow a person who is educated about the dangers of a product to choose to use it. In the Government's and the medical professional's eyes this person would not be in their 'right mind'.. How then, could they ever allow someone who they do not deem 'in their right mind' to use a potentially hazardous drug?

    1. No. It’s not you. You were different before. – I’m still the same person, Lin. – I wasn’t, when I was on it. I did things I would never do. – Those things saved your life. – But they weren’t me. – Yes, they were. No, the way it works… – I know how it works. I get it. I totally get it. You feel invincible.

      The rhetoric of this passage raises a very important question. Are the people who are taking this drug really themselves still? If this was just a thought enhancing drug then perhaps this would be the case, however it does more than just make the user hyper-intelligent. The fact that this drug changes people's attitudes and their personalities proves that these people aren't themselves. On the other hand a hyper-intelligence may not directly change the person, but may enable them because a higher intelligence could reasonably lead to a higher confidence and a higher rationale of thinking.